My friend Nikki sent this to me last Friday. Apparently, this billboard is currently up at LaSalle and Ontario. I think I might have to go check this out this week. There is a Sports Authority there, so I'm thinking it might be real.
Monday, August 14, 2006
The Cheater
My friend Nikki sent this to me last Friday. Apparently, this billboard is currently up at LaSalle and Ontario. I think I might have to go check this out this week. There is a Sports Authority there, so I'm thinking it might be real.
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2 comments:
Deb –
The following article is from the Chicago Sun Times about that billboard that you mentioned on your blog. Apparently, the sign is for real, but the billboard is being put on by some company that is producing a new TV show on cheating spouses.
- Dow
Sign you can't always trust what you see on a billboard
August 3, 2006
BY RICHARD ROEPER SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
If you've been downtown lately, you may have seen the large, canvas billboard stretched across the side of the building housing the Ontourage nightclub on Ontario just west of LaSalle -- the one with this message:
Hi Steven, Do I have your attention now? I know all about her, you dirty, sneaky, immoral, unfaithful, poorly endowed slimeball. Everything's caught on tape.
Your (soon-to-be-ex) Wife,
Emily
p.s. I paid for this billboard from OUR joint bank account.
After a few people e-mailed me photos of the billboard, wondering what the deal was, I walked over and checked it out for myself.
My reaction: Yeah, right.
There was something a little too perfect about the message.
Someone posted a photo of the billboard on the Web site Buzznet, with the caption, "Don't mess with a Chicago girl. This billboard is located on the side of Ontourage night club on Ontario and La Salle."
From the reader comments below the posting:
"Is this for real? Wow!"
"Hell hath no fury . . ."
"No, if she hath fury, she would have included his last name, lol."
"I thought signs/billboards like this were urban legends. Fantastic!"
Other sites noted that "Emily" has a blog, where she talks about her crusade against Steven in excruciating detail. She sent out a mass e-mail under his name, saying, "Hi all, I have gonorrhea. Just an FYI." She posts photos showing her spray-painting Steven's BMW with the message, "HOPE SHE WAS WORTH IT." She talks about sending Steven's office laxative-laced brownies.
Uh-huh.
If this were happening for real, Steven would have obtained a restraining order by now, and Emily might well have been arrested for criminal mischief. And would a national billboard company really accept such an inflammatory ad from a real person about another real person?
Before I could even start making calls to find out about the billboard, I heard from a buddy who had seen a billboard with the same message -- in Los Angeles. I also found references to the billboard in New York.
As the wily skeptics at Gawker .com put it, "Spurned Wife More Likely 26-Year-Old Hipster Ad [Expletive Deleted] Who Thinks He's Just So Clever."
Emily's reasons
Referencing a billboard in New York, Gawker noted: "A few readers -- or one marketing flack using several e-mail accounts -- have/has sent pictures of the following billboard on Houston near Katz's Deli. Clearly poor Emily is distraught, and feckless Steven has gotten his just deserts in a case of public humiliation. Or, you know, it's another douchebag viral ad designed to get people talking."
Exactly right -- and I guess it's working, cuz here we are talking about it.
Now there's an additional sign on the billboards, telling us about a show on Court TV -- a so-called "docu-drama" series about a P.I. who exposes "cheating spouses" and "corrupt business partners." I've never seen the show, and I have no interest in watching a "docu-drama," which sounds to me like they can make stuff up, which is just SHOCKING to hear about any pseudo-reality series.
Sensory overload
What interests me is the marketing approach. Every day, every single one of us is assaulted with ads, from the minute we log on to the computer to the moment we walk out the door. Pop-up ads, billboards, commercials before the movie starts, signs on bus stops, product placement in TV shows, messages on T-shirts, mini-Coopers festooned with company logos, ads in buses and on trains, commercials on TV and on the radio, people with temporary tattoos on their foreheads -- it never ends.
Today's marketing/advertising/public relations specialist faces infinitely tougher competition than Darrin Stevens faced back in the day. You must SHOUT to be heard above the din.
So to plug a show about a brash P.I., somebody comes up with an ad campaign starring a bitter, semi-insane, wronged wife exacting nasty revenge.
You gotta wonder, though: In one of these cities where the billboards first appeared, is there some real guy named Steven who happens to be married to a woman named Emily, and is having an affair? Imagine the guy coming home and saying, "OK, you got me. I'm in love with your best friend, and we've been having an affair for years."
And Emily looks at him and says, "Excuse me?"
i like the ending
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